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Myanmar Firms Feel Pinch From Abroad

Foreign Consumer-Goods Companies Rush in After Removal of Market Sanctions

Myanmar's largest consumer conglomerates are getting drowned out by Western competitors such as Coco-Cola, Pepsi and Canon. The WSJ's Shibani Mahtani tells Yun-Hee Kim what domestic firms are doing to compete against their larger rivals.

YANGON, Myanmar—The world's biggest consumer companies are flocking to Myanmar, filling the once-pariah nation and its backward economy with goods previously unavailable to its 60 million people.

But not everyone is happy. Some of the country's biggest conglomerates—plugging away at the cash-strapped market for decades and fighting hard to grow despite crippling Western sanctions—are now finding themselves drowned out by foreign...